


all time is unredeemable

by basketofnovas (slashmarks)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Child Abuse, Child Marriage, Death Threats, Family, Gen, Pre-Canon, Pre-War, Sane Bellatrix Black Lestrange, The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 07:26:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19057996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slashmarks/pseuds/basketofnovas
Summary: It's the summer of 1968, and Andromeda didn't come home from her seventh year at Hogwarts. The elder Blacks think Bellatrix knows where she is. Eight year old Sirius, afraid for his cousin's life, seeks intervention from a higher authority.





	all time is unredeemable

**Author's Note:**

> Quick notes concerning the tags: no one gets married in this fic and there's no sex, but an eight year old's engagement is a pretty major plot point.
> 
> I've used names and sometimes relationships from JKR's family trees where convenient for me, but I've freely discarded and rearranged dates and other information because they aren't in the books. One thing that's canon is that Sirius' parents were relatives, as his mother's portrait refers to Grimmauld Place as the "house of my fathers," and we don't see any examples in canon of children in the magical world inheriting their names from their mothers.
> 
> This fic is set in the same universe as [houses live and die](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18889717), a few years earlier.
> 
> Title from Eliot's ["Four Quartets."](http://www.coldbacon.com/poems/fq.html) The section it's from is in the end notes.

Bellatrix lay on her back and wished for a book; any book would do. A magazine, a deck of cards, a letter. Particularly that: a letter from a school friend, a distaff cousin, or Andromeda...

She didn't want to think about Andromeda. She hadn't eaten in about two days. It was hard to tell exactly how long it had been, because her uncle had charmed the windows so the light didn't change.

Bellatrix wanted her clothing and her wand more than a book or even a letter from Andy, but she didn't want to think about not having those. If her family didn't relent soon, she was going to die and she knew it. She no longer felt much desire for food, which she thought meant she was close to starving to death. They had fed her dwindling amounts over the past... she thought it had been two months. 

If so, Cissy would go back to Hogwarts soon. She hoped Cissy would go back to Hogwarts. They might marry her now instead and pull her from school, to be absolutely sure of no repeat events.

There she was, thinking about it, as though she wasn't miserable enough.

The problem was that they thought Bellatrix knew where Andy was and was refusing to give her up. This was no longer about finding Andy. If Bellatrix would hold out so loyally, their logic went, might there be a wider conspiracy? Might she be planning the same thing?

Bellatrix would like to think she could hold out under two months of torture to protect Andy. The truth was that she hadn't given up her sister because she couldn't. She hadn't known about her plans. She had no idea where Andy was.

Bellatrix had thought Andy's quiet acceptance of a June wedding to the McNair heir suspicious. But Andy had insisted over Christmas and by letter that she would be alright and didn't mind. Then she had disappeared off the platform into thin air. They had suspected kidnapping until a bribed ministry official produced a muggle marriage certificate filed with the relevant office. Andromeda Black and Ted Tonks had been married in April during Easter break. Andy'd said she was staying at school.

No one had any idea where she was now.

The room was silenced and stripped, and Bellatrix had only a general sense of time. She didn't think anyone had been in to question her in a couple of days. Maybe they had given up. Maybe they would come in and kill her soon. 

She now considered this prospect with relief. She hoped they would actually execute her and not leave her here to waste away, forgotten. Maybe they wanted to wait until Cissy was back in school and wouldn't have to witness the burial. (She knew there would be a funeral. Aunt Cassiopeia had had one. They had to keep up appearances.)

No food today, she decided, and none forthcoming. She turned onto her stomach and prepared to try to sleep.

 

"I don't want to go to dinner," Sirius said, trying to dodge Narcissa's hands.

"Too bad," she said flatly, pinning the open robe together. Her hands were shaking, and Sirius was squirming. She stabbed him with the pin by accident and he yelped. "Sirius, Morgana help me--"

"You're _hurting_ me!" he said, pulling away.

" _Please_ , Sirius," Narcissa said. She sounded like she might cry. 

Cissy never cried. Bella cried when she was mad, and Reggie cried all the time, but Andy and Cissy only cried when they wanted something from their parents. There was no one here for Cissy to impress with tears. "Look, Andy's gone, and Bella is - sick - and I need you to be the man for us cousins, okay? I need you to be strong."

Sirius eyed her skeptically. This also did not sound like Narcissa, generally contemptuous of any claims to wizard superiority over witches. 

"Why do I have to go?" he asked, but he stood still so she could get the pin on, shaking hands and all. "I'm too young. You didn't go until you were ten." Reggie had already been given dinner and was playing in his room. On a night like tonight with a party in the house Sirius should have been with him.

Narcissa's smiles were usually icy or steely. This one shook, too. Sirius was now pretty sure she was going to cry. "The party is for you, Sirius, so you have to be there."

"It's not my birthday or anything," Sirius objected.

Everything had been weird, lately. Usually summer was a good time. Andy and Cissy were there, and Bella was happy about it, and they got to go out more with the three cousins to take him and Reggie, not that Sirius needed watching like a baby anymore. This time Andy hadn't come, and Narcissa was brittle like glass, and Bella had vanished entirely from the house one day like she was going back to school. Except it was the wrong time and she had graduated years ago.

Father had said she was sick, and she needed to rest, so Sirius couldn't see her. She'd been in bed for two months. In a week, Cissy would go back to school. 

Sirius thought that no matter what she was sick with Bella had to be really bored by now.

And no one would tell him where Andy was. Sometimes he thought she must have died of whatever Bella had, but she and Bella hadn't seen each other at all. Anyway, if Andy was dead, wouldn't they say so? But he didn't know what they _wouldn't_ explain, because they'd say if she was in St. Mungo's or something, too.

On the other hand, if Andy had died and Bella might die, too, it might explain why Cissy was so upset. She cared about her sisters. Sirius wasn't sure she cared about anything _else_.

Without Bella or Andy the house was quiet and dangerous. The adults were all short-tempered except for Aunt Druella, who wept and drank continuously. Cissy made sure Sirius and Regulus got dinner and to leave the house sometimes and fixed it when they got hurt, but it wasn't really the same. She wouldn't play _with_ them like Bella or make up stories like Andy and she wasn't as good at reading out loud as either of them. 

Though maybe Sirius was being unfair because Cissy was upset right now, and might not feel like playing.

"Maybe I should have said about, not for," Narcissa said, startling him. She had been quiet so long he'd forgotten about asking a question. She settled the collar into place; then she started combing his hair. "Your parents are talking to the Carrows about you marrying Alecto. She's a year older than you. They want to meet you. And there will be - other guests, very important ones, so please behave, Sirius."

He whipped around, and the comb ripped at his hair, but he was too worried to really care about the brief pain. "I'm supposed to marry Bella," he said.

Cissy wouldn't look at him.

"Cissy," he said. "That's always what Mother and Father and Uncle Cygnus said - that you and Andy would get married and move away and Bella would stay with me. Is - is Bella dead?" He hadn't even heard anything from her room. But the adults went in, looking grim and unhappy like you might if a family member was really sick.

Narcissa put her face in her hands. "You'll make me cry and smudge my makeup, and we don't have _time_ ," she said. 

Sirius made a rude noise to show this wasn't an answer. 

Eventually she said, "I know I'm not Bella and you would rather have her, but I'm all we have right now. Will you promise to behave at the party if I explain? And not tell any of our parents I told you?"

Sirius looked at her skeptically. But no one had explained _anything_ , and it was only one night. He could survive anything for one night. "Okay," he said. "Promise."

"Swear on your magic," Cissy said, with a frightened glance at the door.

"I swear," he said, making a face.

"Alright. The behaving starts now, turn around and let me finish with your hair while I talk." He complied unhappily. Narcissa extracted the comb before she began to speak. "Andromeda did something - very bad, Sirius. She ran away with a mudblood, and now our parents are having political problems. And my betrothal was broken by my fiance's parents. That's why no one will talk about Andy. And Bella..." 

Cissy's voice got choked up here, and she was silent for several strokes before she said, "Our parents think Bella knew about it and helped her. They've been trying to make her tell them where Andromeda is. Bella says she doesn't know."

"But that's not fair, punishing her for something Andy did," Sirius said, although honestly he knew better than to think the word "fair" came into anything in their house. 

Cissy knew he knew, so she didn't bother to say so. "They think she's lying."

"They've been punishing her for two _months_?" Sirius said, and then he really thought about what it meant that they wanted him to maybe marry Alecto Carrow. "Cissy, are they going to kill Bella?"

"I don't know," Narcissa said, and then she really did cry.

They were late coming down, and Mother glared at him. Cissy said, "Forgive me, Aunt Walburga, I was overwhelmed by my new responsibilities," as smoothly as any of the adults. There were too many people around for Mother to make a scene about that with a good apology, so she had to let it go.

Dinner was as horrible as Sirius had expected. There were Mother and Father and Uncle Cygnus and Aunt Druella and Grandfather Pollux and Grandfather Arcturus; plus the Carrow head and his wife and four assorted aunts and uncles; plus Abraxas Malfoy; plus Gaidic Lestrange and his eldest son Rodolphus who was a few years older than Bella and therefore counted as old; plus Corban Yaxley; and Sirius was about to get to counting the other bored children when he saw someone he didn't know.

Sirius wasn't old enough to officially go to parties, but Father had been teaching him about what he would do one day as Paterfamilias for two years. He never saw totally unfamiliar guests when he spied on parties or people going to Father's office. This was interesting enough to make him interrupt his list of horrible things about the dinner and watch.

The man was dressed entirely in black, which wasn't really unusual, but the plainness was. Most men wore a few pieces of jewelry and most robes had decorations on them. He didn't have long hair, so he wasn't a head or an heir and he probably wasn't a cousin or younger son either with hair that short. And he was old like all adults were, but he wasn't really old like Grandfather Arcturus or Grandfather Pollux or even Father, really. All of this was really interesting because everyone listened to him. Sirius could read a room - it was a survival skill in this family - and definitely the not-old not-decorated not-noble man in black was the center of this one.

Even Malfoy, whose family Bella and Andy had once gigglingly said was so recently common he was afraid if he spoke to anyone poor they might rub off on him, was hanging on his every word.

Cissy was seated with Sirius, probably to make him behave. "Who's that?" he whispered to her. Because he had promised to behave, he didn't point, just leaned his head a little in that direction.

Cissy's eyes flicked over and back. "That's Lord Voldemort," she whispered back, leaning over to cut up his meat like he couldn't do it himself. Sirius made a face into her shoulder but didn't argue.

"He's a Dark Lord claimant?" Sirius whispered. He knew that wasn't a family name, and anyway no one really used "Lord" in conversation. Only sometimes the Malfoys, and then everyone rolled their eyes when Abraxas wasn't looking. 

Then Sirius remembered where he had heard the name. "Is he the one who nearly started a riot in the Wizengamot?"

"Yes. To both. Shh, Sirius." Narcissa smiled her best _I hate you_ smile at Diomedes Carrow and changed the subject, raising her voice to a normal tone.

Now that he knew to look with magic Sirius could tell the man was a claimant to mastery of the Dark Arts. There was something in the air around him that stirred when he moved or looked somewhere new, something electric and almost painful to reach for. Sirius had no idea how this would measure up among Dark Lords, never having met any others.

Lord Voldemort was too far away for Sirius to eavesdrop. He looked at Alecto dubiously and tried to imagine marrying her. She was sort of pretty, he guessed. She was wearing pale green dress robes and her hair was in a bunch of braids. She looked as bored as he was, stabbing her roll absently with her knife. Maybe they could at least be friends, Sirius thought, and opened his mouth to try when he remembered that they wanted her for him so that they could kill Bella.

He didn't want to talk. His appetite had gone, too. He put his fork down and clasped his hands loosely in his lap. 

He wanted Bella.

Dinner was over eventually, but he didn't get to go upstairs. The adults milled around the drawing room. Sirius saw some of them were drinking and began to be nervous, not just bored. Cissy was talking to Abraxas Malfoy now - actually she was sort of cornered by him - and he didn't see Alecto, or any of the other couple of children, all older than him and Alecto anyway. He tried to be inconspicuous in a corner. Reggie and Cissy were better than him at this.

He realized he had drifted near the Dark Lord and his hangers on. At least none of them seemed to be drinking much, Sirius thought, trying to listen without visibly craning.

"--the first to go, or close to it," Yaxley was saying, laughing. "With my lord's approval, of course."

Who was going, and where?

"When the time comes, Yaxley, and not before it," Lord Voldemort said amiably. "We shall see what the circumstances are... Perhaps the Bones, perhaps the Prewetts, or the Weasleys... There are so very many Weasleys, surely a few will not be missed."

Sirius thought he'd heard the Weasleys were blood traitors, but the Bones were respectable even if they weren't really political allies of the Blacks. It was funny to hear them put together.

He must have made a noise, because Lord Voldemort turned. 

"Ah," he said. "The young heir himself. We have not been introduced." He bowed, not particularly low, but it wasn't like Sirius was the head of Black yet - or like he really cared. "I am Lord Voldemort."

Sirius hadn't been unsupervised at this sort of thing before, but he knew what to do. He bowed back. "Sirius Black," he said. He didn't need a title. The name Black was enough.

"A pleasure," Lord Voldemort said. "I understand we are all here in your honor tonight, and I must thank you for your welcome. But I find that though I would like to propose a toast, I lack anything to drink..."

"My lord," Rodolphus Lestrange said quickly. He bowed and moved off, presumably, to fix that. 

So a Dark Lord was someone who could get the Lestrange heir to behave like a house elf.

"I'm honored by your presence," Sirius said, which was really just one of the usual things you said to guests but seemed to go over well. He thought again of Bella locked upstairs, maybe beaten or starving. He wished he could get food to her from the party.

Lestrange returned with the wine, the toast occurred among most of the people in the vicinity, and the conversation, to Sirius' relief, moved on. 

Sirius hung back but was polite when the adults spoke to him. Eventually Alecto Carrow started crying and was taken home to sleep. Sirius was not released then, even though he was a year younger. He wished he could follow her example, he could hardly keep his eyes open, but he had promised Narcissa he would behave. And his mother wouldn't take it nearly as well as Alecto's had. 

He thought the adults must have forgotten about him. Narcissa was surrounded by adult admirers; his mother was scowling and drinking; his father was speaking intently with the Carrow head. Sirius hoped it wasn't about marriage contracts. 

There was a lot of movement all at once. Sirius blinked out of a half-doze and realized they were clearing the center of the room. 

Cissy was there again suddenly. "What's going on?" he whispered as she dragged him to the wall. Her fingers were too tight. "Is there going to be a duel?" He hadn't noticed anyone being called out.

"A demonstration only," Cissy whispered. "Rodolphus Lestrange and Corban Yaxley."

Sirius craned forward, but the duel proved rather unexciting. It was the sort of thing other families taught, flashing lights and a lot of dodging. The magic didn't taste weighty, or bloody, the way it did when the older Blacks dueled. It seemed silly to duel in heavy, uncomfortable dress robes if you had to dodge so much.

"They're not very good," he muttered to Cissy.

"Hush," she said, frowning at the scene. He knew from the way her eyebrows pressed together that she agreed. Bella and Andy could do better, Sirius thought. 

He wished Bella was here. She would insult the duelists with him. And if she was here, that would mean their parents had forgiven her and she would be alright. It was bad enough to lose Andy, but Bella hadn't _done anything_.

Sirius saw Lord Voldemort standing a few places away from them, looking thoughtful himself, and wondered why he had been invited. He thought he had seen Father talking to Lord Voldemort a few times, deferential in a way he normally only was with Grandfather Arcturus and Grandfather Pollux.

Sirius had an idea.

He hoped it wouldn't be breaking his promise. But it wasn't being bad, really. And anyway if it would help Bella it would be worth breaking a promise. Even a promise he had sworn on his magic, even if it really did make him a squib. He didn't want them to kill Bella.

He inched carefully in the direction of Lord Voldemort, not enough for Cissy to notice. He pitched his voice just loud enough that he knew the people in that corner would hear when he said, "They're not, though. Bella could do better. That blue light was the isgebind curse, right? That's the heaviest thing they've used and when I watched her teaching you she said she learned it summer after her fourth year."

He hoped that would work. He couldn't say anything else. It would be too obvious.

"Sirius, be _quiet_ ," Narcissa muttered, and he turned his head back to the duel, hoping...

Lord Voldemort's next words were from only a pace or so away, much closer than he had been when Sirius spoke. "This would be Bellatrix Black? Your older cousin - and your sister, I believe, Narcissa..."

"Yes, my lord," Narcissa said. Her lips were white, and her fingers on Sirius' arm hurt again. "She is indisposed with illness and was not able to attend."

"Does she often teach you curses?"

"It's a hobby of hers, my lord," Narcissa murmured. 

The demonstration was over - Sirius hadn't seen who won it or with what - and Father was coming over, eyes sharp. "What's this? What did you think of the duel, Cissy, Sirius?"

"Very exciting," Narcissa said flatly.

"I was about to mention how I would like to meet your eldest niece," Lord Voldemort said. "Bellatrix, I believe? Her cousin thinks quite highly of her way with curses..."

"Yes," Father said shortly. "She's always been good with them. She has dragonpox, and they're not sure she'll live, unfortunately."

"Tragic," Lord Voldemort said. "I expect she will recover - such a strong family..."

"We pray for it," Father said, but he sounded angry, rather than hopeful.

"I hope to be able to call on you when she recovers," Lord Voldemort said, inclined his head. "Ah, I see you've brought out the elf made wine - 1854, is it? I would ask where you found it, but I suppose the answer is the Black wine cellar."

"Yes," Father said, disoriented. "Yes, an interest of my grandfather's... Shall we try some?"

They walked off together, and Narcissa let out all her breath at once.

"You said you'd behave," she said.

"I didn't do anything wrong," Sirius said.

"I asked Aunt Walburga if I could put you to bed after the duel, come on," Cissy said, and when they were far enough up the stairs that no one would see, she hugged him with tears on her face again.

 

Bellatrix woke to the door slamming open so hard it hit the wall and bounced. She sat up, too fogged from exhaustion to move quickly. She expected Aunt Walburga or her father, but it was Uncle Orion. He was usually the closest to reasonable. She had hoped, early on, she could persuade him she hadn't known.

"Bellatrix Druella Black," he said coldly. "What have you led your cousin into?"

Sirius? she thought blankly. Sirius was eight. But it had to be him, because Reggie was _five_.

"Get up," Orion said, and she complied sluggishly. She didn't expect a reprieve with him in this mood. More likely this was the execution she had been waiting for. She hoped they wouldn't make Sirius watch, if they were angry with him for some reason.

Her uncle threw her a robe and shift, no small clothes. She fumbled them on while he watched. Hers, but among her less expensive clothing; plain and soft. The robes felt odd after weeks of nudity, pulling against her skin in a foreign way. She paced as much as she had the energy for, so she wasn't too clumsy on the stairs down.

Oh, no. Sirius _was_ there, huddled in a miserable ball in the drawing room doorway. His mother had her wand trained on him. He looked up as they came down. She watched horror flash across his face and thought, I must look really bad. Then he smiled at her quickly before dropping his gaze.  
He knows something, Bellatrix thought, nearly stopping dead.

"Take him into the room," Orion said curtly. Walburga did it with a little too much enthusiasm. Sirius yelped at her handling and she slapped him.

"Obviously you are completely unmoved by pain inflicted on you," Orion said to her. "Perhaps Sirius matters more."

She choked, gagged on air. "I _don't know_ ," she said, as she had for two months. "I didn't know what she was planning, please - you can't hurt Sirius-"

Sirius was the heir. They wouldn't really damage the heir permanently, would they?

Orion pointed his wand lazily at his son and made a gesture for silence. Bellatrix cut herself off mid plea, before she could even think it through.

"That is no longer important," he said. She stared at him, baffled. They had starved her for weeks over it and it was no longer important? What did they think she'd done now that was worse? She hadn't left her room in two months!

Her uncle stared at her grimly. She heard Sirius yelp again and started to turn, but some flicker in Orion's eyes stopped her.

Orion was rational, yes. Walburga was proud and vicious without reason, controlled by her temper; her father and Grandfather Pollux were unthinkingly sadistic and grasping; Grandfather Arcturus cared only for his books and her own mother was alternately distraught and mindlessly vicious like an animal caught in a trap. That could make Orion the reasonable one, or the most dangerous.

"Tell us about your contact with Lord Voldemort," her uncle said.

Bellatrix stared. After a moment, she realized she was laughing and cut it off, appalled. "One minute I'm helping Andy run off with a mudblood, the next I'm conspiring with a dark lord who wants to kill them all? You're out of your mind."

Sirius gasped and whined in pain from the shadows at the side of the room, and Bellatrix flinched.

"Hold your tongue," Walburga said.

"She's telling the truth." Sirius' voice came out in a whisper, loud in the starkly quiet room. It had to be well after midnight, Bellatrix realized - closer to dawn. There had been a party earlier, by the look of the mess.

"It was my idea," Sirius went on. She wanted to take Fiendfyre to all their parents for the way his voice dragged against pain. "I thought you were going to kill her if you wanted me to marry Alecto, and I thought he might be able to stop you."

Alecto? Bellatrix thought, then inanely, oh, yes, the Carrow girl. The right age and breeding, too young to say about her temperament.

"Orion," Walburga said. "We can take any Dark Lord. The fortifications on this house--"

"Don't be absurd, I'd rather not confine everyone inside until this blows over. We'd kill each other ourselves with no help from upstarts necessary," her uncle said. "We'll have to cooperate."

Cooperate with what?

"The shame on this house!" Walburga's voice shot up an octave in fury. Bellatrix winced. "Our niece, consorting with filth - the other aiding her--!"

"That's enough," Orion said, sounding rather exhausted. "Don't make me call the wards to contain you."

Walburga hissed, "My lord husband," in furious acquiescence. Sirius shrieked in pain this time at whatever she did to assuage her own temper, and Bellatrix twitched.

"Besides," Orion went on, "If Bellatrix is of interest to this dark lord, considering his political opinions, it may serve to clear her of suspicion... Reduce our embarrassment while keeping her alive... Yes. A neat solution."

Two thoughts came to Bellatrix: amusement at the way Orion talked himself into believing any plan he agreed to was his own idea, and indignation that it sounded as if they'd planned to kill her out of embarrassment without even seriously thinking her guilty.

Then she actually understood: she was going to live. Sirius had somehow maneuvered the mysterious Lord Voldemort to demand that from their parents. She was going to live.

They were going to blame Sirius for it.

"Uncle," she said. Her voice grated with exhaustion. "If you think it will embarrass the family less this way, didn't Sirius - do something helpful, really--"

Orion looked at her and laughed humorlessly. "You both badly need a lesson in obedience, and not acting against the interest of the family, beside that. Bellatrix, sit down before you fall down." She sat because she didn't want to be dragged by her hair and she knew that would be next. "And look at your cousin. Walburga, you may start."

Sirius smiled at her again while he still could, while his mother strung his wrists up from the hook in the ceiling. Bellatrix thought, Andy will cut him down later; then she remembered. Andy had left them - to be punished for _her_ actions. 

If she was going to work with Lord Voldemort, she was going to have to take up his opinions, and she supposed she might as well start now. Andy had _left_ them. She bit her tongue until it bled. Uncle Orion's wand was trained on her.

Their parents didn't use anything so crude as whips and chains; even the bonds holding Sirius up were conjured magic. A wand was enough. Sirius would have those scars for life, Bellatrix thought dully, trying to close her ears to his screaming. She knew begging and bargaining would be useless now. They'd only remember how well this had worked next time she upset them if she showed a reaction. Sirius' face had gone faintly green.

She balked when Orion went to remove her without cutting Sirius down after a flogging like that. "Sirius is eight! You'll kill him!"

"The spellwork on the hook prevents fatal shock. You know that." Her uncle was not impressed. "You're both too stubborn. It needs time to sink in." 

"Uncle," Bellatrix said, and pitched forward to her knees on the floor. She fumbled for his hand; he let her take it impassively, let her kiss his ring. "Please, please, I'm sorry--" She didn't even have anything to apologize for. "I'm sorry for my trespasses. Please, let Sirius down."

He waited without expression until her pleas tapered off. "You are forgiven," he said curtly. "Sirius is not. Goodnight, Bellatrix." He pulled his hand from her grip and left.

She was shut in her room again. This time they left her the robes, and Kreacher brought her broth. It was difficult to appreciate this knowing Sirius was hanging in the drawing room, still bleeding, while Kreacher went back to cleaning up after the party and muttering insults about his poor mother's heartbreak all the while.

Actually she might be able to do something about that. "Kreacher?" she whispered, and grinned when he came. They'd told him her punishment was over, then. "The soup has onions in it. I don't want it. Make something else."

With any luck, she could keep Kreacher too busy to harass Sirius until morning.

They kept her in her room, but her belongings absent her wand were returned and she was fed broth until she recovered enough for real food. Narcissa came in two days later, clung to Bellatrix and sobbed for a good ten minutes. Then she related that Sirius was in bed recovering from the flogging but well enough to complain about her reading voice and ask about Bellatrix. 

She also told her what Sirius had actually said to Lord Voldemort. Bellatrix laughed until she nearly cried and wrote him a teasing note asking how he was for Narcissa to carry back.

Three weeks later, Lord Voldemort came to the house to discuss business with Orion.

Narcissa was back at school, so Bellatrix's mother helped dress her for the meeting. Bellatrix resented every touch after the summer. 

Bellatrix was still gaunt and tired easily, but no longer dying. She was no longer helpless. Uncle Orion gave her wand back just outside the drawing room door. It felt like reuniting with a lost friend; like finding a co-conspirator.

She entered the room and sank into a deep curtsy, skimming it quickly before she ducked her head. Her uncle was behind her and the unknown Dark Lord before her. Handsome enough, though he looked nothing like the pureblood aristocrats she was used to, almost like a monk between the very plainness of his dress and that short hair.

Well, perhaps he was an ascetic. Didn't he have some esoteric mystic name for his group - Eaters of Death or something? She hardly cared. He could have proclaimed himself the mortal incarnation of Zeus and if he'd protect her and the other children she'd pretend to believe it.

"My lord," she said, still low. "You requested a demonstration?"

"Bellatrix Black," she said. When she looked up, she saw he was inspecting the tapestry with the Black family tree, not looking at her at all. "Yes. A duel, I think. Shall we begin?" He turned to her and bowed.

She had two goals: make this Dark Lord think her valuable enough to keep alive, and make Uncle Orion afraid to ever try to take her wand again. She'd get them both.

Bellatrix raised her wand.

**Author's Note:**

> Time present and time past  
> Are both perhaps present in time future  
> And time future contained in time past.  
> If all time is eternally present  
> All time is unredeemable.  
> What might have been is an abstraction  
> Remaining a perpetual possibility  
> Only in a world of speculation.  
> What might have been and what has been  
> Point to one end, which is always present.  
> Footfalls echo in the memory  
> Down the passage which we did not take  
> Towards the door we never opened  
> Into the rose-garden. My words echo  
> Thus, in your mind.
> 
> Like this? [Reblog it on tumblr](https://slashmarks.tumblr.com/post/185303988955/all-time-is-unredeemable), or just come talk to me about Harry Potter!


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